Refugee Space Project
"Giving a Voice to World Refugees"

 
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Souleymane Kabwe and MacGoddins Lushimba Speaking at ECDC Conference, Arlington, Virginia, USA
"Refugee Space Project", as its name suggests, is a "Project" created on Tuesday December 01, 2009 by MacGoddins Lushimba (Denver, Colorado, USA) in very close consultation and collaboration with Souleymane Kabwe (Providence, Rhode Island, USA) to honor all those folks that were or are still victims of war, political, ethnic, religious conflicts and many other natural or man-made calamities.
In other words, the Refugee Space Project is a "Space", a "Platform" or "Network" intending to connect refugees among themselves first of all, and then with other non-refugee people (friends of refugees) so that they can reason about the life of these people of concern and share their stories, ideas and ideals to raise public awareness about the reality of life they are leading in the world.

It's known that very often refugees' life is led very  far from the public eyes in unclean encampements under the weight of too many sad realities that authorities who say to work for their protection and assistance try by all means to hide from outsiders.

Having been themselves refugees in Osire Refugee Camp, Namibia, MacGoddins for 4 full years (January 2002 to September 2006), but Souleymane for 6 years; and after experiencing a lot of hardship, these 2 are the kind of persons who know what it really means and takes to be a "Refugee", especially in an environment where basic notions of human rights are deliberately ignored by officials (either governmental or those appointed by private organizations) who claim to  work for the betterment of asylum seekers/refugees' life, or simply unkown to asylum seekers.

Nowadays the word REFUGEE has a broad meaning due to numerous incidents that  are the root-cause that produce these people of concern either they are called "Refugees, Asylum Seekers or Displaced People". That's why our honor, as we mentioned above, should also be extended to all the victims of war, either they have crossed the border into a foreign land or just have displaced themselves within the territory of their country. We cannot also forget all the victims of calamities such as drought, earthquake, economic crisis,  ethnic, political or religious persecutions. After being in the USA for 3 years now, MacGoddins Lushimba and Souleymane Kabwe have dedicated part of their life and time
 to the advocacy of Refugees around the world. 
They say they  are trying to keep the promise they made while living and fighting as  Refugee Rights Defenders in  Namibia, i.e. always to keep in mind these people of concern. When asked why they are so passionate with this activity, they recently answered that it's their "way of saying thank you to the Creator and give something  back to life for all the precious gifts they have received after their hard time in Osire Camp, Namibia."
Upon their arrival in the United States, these 2 "ringleaders" were immediately noticed by some Organizations working for Refugees. With no delay, a lot of people were eager to hear something from them. Reason why the 2 activists were first of all invited (December 2006) by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Washigton DC where they spent a week and talked to the USCRI staffers about the reality of life in Osire Refugee Camp, Namibia. They were also taken to the U.S. Capitol where they met with some senators' aides and many other representatives of Human Rights Organizations before concluding their trip with a meeting with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of States in the U.S. State Department building.

Some few months later (April 2007) they were invited  in Arlington City, Virginia State, where they brilliantly spoke at the ECDC Conference about the gloomy kind of life refugees are still living in Namibia, about their activities in the field of Refugees' Rights and their ambitious dream of becoming full-time human rights activists.

In short all those people who feel they really  fit into one or many categories above-mentioned are cordially invited to be part of the "Refugee Space Project-RSP" and share their visions, stories or insight that will be published with their permission in the form they like it to be.

The Web Site is new and incomplete. It needs your contribution and suggestions to be completed. We did not want to do all the job and let nothing for you. We just left a space for you so that you can fill it out and really feel as part of our activities.